Igor The Bear

Diary

Igor did not want to climb Misty Mountain, and Misty Mountain, frankly, did not want him either, but Junichiro kept pinging him about some discipline retreat until the big bear finally lumbered up the fog-choked switchbacks just to make the pinging stop. Three days of sparring in that wet grey nowhere and Igor's technique sharpened the way a boulder sharpens when the mountain keeps throwing smaller rocks at it, slow, grinding, undeniable, until Junichiro was gassed and Igor was still standing there like a debt that never gets liquidated. He remembers being a disciplined blade once, cutting clean lines before dawn instead of dragging himself out of a hammock at noon smelling like week-old weed and regret, and some cold true part of him knows that version of himself would've climbed that mountain for training, not for a text he was too slow to ignore. He got stronger, sure, floor's up on his own personal chart, but he has never been more miserable, soaked, sore, and forced to admit that self-improvement tastes exactly like cold rain and Junichiro's smug little grin. Still, once he was moving up that trail nothing on this earth was pulling him back down early, because if there's one thing about Igor, it's that starting him is the hard part and stopping him is basically impossible, even when misery's the whole itinerary.